TOKYO – The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, will visit Japan in April to speak at a symposium on international cooperation and peace, event organisers said.
China regularly protests visits abroad by the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959.
The 1989 Nobel Peace Prize laureate is scheduled to arrive in Tokyo on April 8 on a trip sponsored by a Japanese Buddhist peace group, the Association for Rengeji Tanjoji International Cooperation.
The Dalai Lama will then attend the symposium and two other events in the southern Japanese city of Kumamoto from April 10-13, according to the Association, which has been active in helping refugees and poor people from other Asian countries.
The Tibetan leader last visited Japan last November for religious lectures and pilgrimages.
The Dalai Lama, whose government-in-exile is based in the northern Indian hill station of Dharamsala, is regularly condemned by Beijing as a “splittist,” although he says he is seeking greater rights for Tibet within China.
